Garden Bloggers Bloom Day July 2019

Starting when i do not have daily routines anymore, i can already do whatever i fancy doing! Many who are still in the "routine business" might envy my conditions. Yes, i actually am enjoying my days very much. It is still barely 7 months in my new life, and some  consequences  include forgetting my blog posts. My last was still in April. I hope i can regain the enthusiasm of routine blog posting.

Now i am showing you some blooms after the first heavy rains in June. Rains were actually very late by one month, and we can always blame El Nino or climate change for these changes. Nevertheless, typhoons have to come and visit us, with rains as the positive consequence. Maybe if not for the typhoons, we will be as dry as the deserts.

One of the best consequences is stopping the dormancy of hippeastrum, and the flowers emerge way ahead of their leaves. They bloom only once a year, so blooming is always very special, expected and savored. I have always loved hippeastrum and they always give me a yearly high.

  one of the siblings of my crosses, flowered after 4 yrs

  NoID given by a friend

 Hippeastrum x johnsonii

 Hippeastrum x johnsonii

Hippeastrum puniceum

Hippeastrum puniceum 'Alberti' 

 Hippeastrum 'Blossom Peacock'

 Hippeastrum 'Blossom Peacock'

 Hippeastrum 'Blossom Peacock'

another sibling of my cross with H x johnsonii

 another sibling of H x johnsonii

Next post, will be for other bulbs. 

GBBD

Nature Notes

Blooms as Rainy Season Starts

Climate change is already a reality for all of us. Our Dry Season in March - May gave us an overheated environment, resulting in excessive electric bills for the airconditioning units and tripled water bills for those with gardens. There are also incidents of people suffering from strokes from jobs that entail too much heat exposures. I myself cannot just go home to the province every weekend because of heat on the roads. My plants suffered from neglect during those times. They are just watered insufficiently as our water supply also dwindled during hot months.

And there are unusual inconsistensies in terms of drizzles and short rains. We just had them starting in 2016, last year and this year. Sometimes it lessened the immediate heat, but eventually increasing the Heat Index because of the high humidity plus high temperatures. As for the plants, many are blessed by the sudden outpours. However, I as a gardener is not very happy with the effects of intermittent drizzles to my dormant bulbs. These include hippeastrum, crinum, blood lilies and a few more. The effects are much more obvious for the hippeastrum. My H puniceum hedges had intermittent blooms that did not give me a fully blooming spectacle like in the early 2000s. This brought me some sadness.

On the other hand, there is also a redeeming advantage, as i will show you below. Previous post in May shows the first hippeastrum blooms.

Hippeastrum 1

 I self pollinated one of my hippeastrum hybrids with the hope that i will be getting characters differently from the parent. This is a very old hybrid as my search landed on H x johnsonii, supposedly the first hybrid since 18th century. It was said to be a cross from H reginae and H vitatum, however we can never tell the truth for my bulb as hybridizing is easy and anybody could have done so in the long life of the hybrid that landed on me. I expect that characters segregate through constant selfing or backcrossing, eventually getting the characteristics of the parents of old. However, this entails a long time as it takes 3-4 years from seed to blooming.

 My first original plant had 3-4 flowers per scape. My first offspring, ABA-1-1, bloomed last year and produced the same characteristics as my original plant. This 2nd sibling, ABA-1-2, bloomed now and has same characters. It also has undulating tepals.

 Hippeastrum 2

 The 3rd bulb, ABA-1-3, bloomed now for the first time and exhibited different characters. It has fully separated tepals and the shapes are thinner except the uppermost. The middle rays emanating from the throat is retained. The characteristic folding back of the tepals is a characteristics of the original plant.

The abaxial characters differed much from the original plant, with those dark maroon color at the base of the tepals.

 Hippeastrum 3

 This is another NOID plant given 2 years ago by a friend. Attempts to pollinate it failed because pollen grains seem to be defective, or not present. I wonder what caused those characters. It bloomed normally last year, but this time the pedicels did not separate fully producing a twin bloom.

The twin bloom is unusual for hippeastrum flowers, but they are beautiful that way. 

One of the 3 flowers is separated showing the normal features. 

Hippeastrum 4

The last gave me more excitement as i had been culturing this for 4 years from seed. A Facebook friend from the US gave me some seeds but did not know its parents, except that one is Blossom Peacock. She is just a collector and does not give particular attention to their IDs. The seeds gave me only 6 bulbs, with only this one producing the first flower. I am supposed to call it Blossom Peacock, but the blooms are much much different from it. 

Blossom Peacock is a scented, multi-petalled hippeastrum. This offspring only has an addded single row of petals inside the main layer. The anthers look good although am not sure if there are viable pollens. She originally told me it was selfed, however the offspring told me otherwise. Now i went back to her and probed, eventually  telling me the pod parent could probably be a very old Florida NOID hybrid. She even sent me the photo of the possible pod-parent. Doubles are normally the pollen donors because they normally lack productive stigma. 

Even at the closed bud stage it is already lovely. This is the first bulb to flower, so i still have to closely watch the remaining 5 plants. I am sure some of them will flower next year. 

The difficulty with hippeastrum is the single flowering once-a-year. It really is taxing to the impatient gardener like me. But i have no choice, i must be patient, withold the excitement for a few more years. 

The first heavy rains in June was so good in bringing out the life from my dormant plants. And the almost simultaneous blooming of my precious ones gave me lots of joy. At least my first timers showed beautiful characters, eliciting more excitement in selfing, backcrossing, observing. There is only one drawback, the continuous rains washed out all the possible pollens. Being an incurable optimist, this gives me more excitement for the next years ahead. 

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Hippeastrum Blooms in May

When climate was still reliable, and it has not yet been acting like a stressed psychopath, hippeastrum here in the hot tropics wake up from dormancy after the first heavy rains. By heavy rains i mean continuous rains that lasted for long hours or overnight. That literally soaks the soil deep until the roots of trees are fully quenched. That is the time when after 2-3 days the grasses starts to produce the green carpet, and the weeds starts to simultaneously germinate.

However, with the so called "Climate Change", not only people are experiencing the dilemma and problems in planning agricultural planting. Even the plants themselves suffer chaotic behavior. And that response to rain is very obvious with the hippeastrum blooming. We got some long drizzles in March and April, enough to break dormancy of some hippeastrum bulbs. Definitely, i will not be getting again simultaneous blooms from my H puniceum hedges and mounds. Moreover, i will not be able to pollinate some blooms as they will not bloom simultaneously. This year is a repeat of last  year. It is now May and i am already getting the bad picture of the climate change outcome.

The first one and No. 3 are red while the others are orange.

1. Hippeastrum X johnsonii

2. Hippeastrum petiolatum 

    It has shorter growth, scape and smaller bulbs. The flowers are also smaller but compensated with more number of 4 flowers per scape.

3. Hippeastrum from seeds of Carol Noel

    

They have much bigger bulbs, longer leaves, taller scape and big flowers. The tips of the flowers also tend to flip that brings more grace to its look. They also have 4-5 flowers per scape. 

4. Hippeastrum puniceum

5. Hippeastrum puniceum 'Alberti' 

    This hybrid of H. puniceum is short, with leaves also dwarfed by the other species. However, the multipetalled flowers get the wonderful limelight. Besides, the blooms last for several days. 

6. Hippeastrum roseum

This is also a diminutive species, but taller than that of H. 'Alberti'. Leaves are more erect and        thicker too. However, the flowers per scape are normally just 2-3. Flower sizes are also narrower just like the H. petiolatum. The stripes however gives it the outstanding attraction. 

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First Heavy Rains Outcome

Our rainy season this year officially started first week of June. It is a much awaited moment to alleviate our extreme heat and discomfort brought by the long dry season, an El Niño year. The effect for humans is not sudden, but a pacifier, as it is still very hot when we go out from 10:00am to 3:00pm. However, the almost daily thunderstorms in the afternoons bring rains to many places. Thunder and lightning are welcome if they will bring in the rains!

The plants are all rejoicing! The first heavy rains immediately produced the transformed look. Dormant bulbs and seeds emerged on cue. Drying branches immediately produced shoots, and in one week growth is already very prominent among all plants. Grasses, nonetheless, are the most responsive and quick. The roadsides suddenly get carpets of green, giving us panacea to bored minds reminiscent of dull surroundings. My soul suddenly engaged again to a new vibrant surroundings. Our garden in the province has been teeming with growths, scents, and lovely blooms. Hmmm, i was not able to go home last weekend, but i am sure lots of them are still there this weekend, waiting for me appreciate them more.

 A week after the first heavy rains, the air around our property is very well scented in the mornings. It is courtesy of the few coffee plants surviving on their own.

 The 2 photos above and the pompoms closed-up below is the 'Liberica' variety, made famous as "Kapeng Barako" in Batangas. The berries are the biggest among the coffee varieties of commerce. Since kids we are already familiar with drinking coffee, mostly from this "Kapeng Barako".

 The above coffee flowers are also sweetly scented, but is the 'Robusta' variety. Its berries are small and most famous in the nearby province of Cavite. It is used with other varieties to make lovely coffee blends, together with 'Éxcelsa' and 'Arabica' varieties. This last one is very aromatic as ground beans, but grow only in colder highlands.

Above is the response of the dormant bulbs of Hippeastrum puniceum to rain. Notice that other grasses around the mounds are not yet growing, but the scapes and some leaves are already showing luxurious growths. 

This is the growth of the H. puniceum in the same area 3 weeks after the first heavy rains. A lot more of the hedges are at the right side of the area, but my niece did not take the photos. She just sent it to me by FB.

close-up of the Hipeastrum puniceum

Hippeastrum roseum planted in a pot. The bloom is a bit smaller than H puniceum, but the stripes on the petals make it so lovely. By the way, i read somewhere that its more correct name is Rhodophiala rosea. 

 Hippeastrum johnsonii blooms ahead of the H puniceum. It actually emerged immediately a week after the first heavy rains.

 They made the area more lively and conspicuous. I wish there still are some followers when these dehisced. I hope to take more of their photos.

 even the back is so attractive for me

This crinum is newly planted, the friend who gave it to me said it becomes a very big plant. It hasn't acclimatized very well yet to the sun, so still under some potted plants, but it already produced that scape to become white scented blooms. Unfortunately, i didn't see the blooms.

You can still see the very dry grounds despite the first heavy rains. Grasses are not emerging yet, but this endemic Proiphys amboinensis already sent scape and leaves. Its umbel of white flowers is also scented and very beautiful. However, it only blooms once a year during this condition. The rest of the year will only be showing the maturing leaves, somehow looking like green hostas.

 this succulent, sedum, was already blooming during the dry season, but becomes lovelier with more flowers after the first rains.

Of course, i will not end my post without the hoyas. They also responded so well with the rains, the leaves got washed, environment gets colder and humidity increased. They love it. 

bloom of the above mother plant, Hoya pubicorolla formerly Hoya pubicalyx 'Black Dragon'

Hoya benguetensis plant (above) and close-up of the umbel (below)

 Hoya multiflora, they also call this shooting stars hoya

 the more common Hoya carnosa, lovely even if they are around for long

 Hoya mindorensis

 Hoya Viola

Next weekend when i go home, i am sure there are already lots of butterflies. Their larvae will have lots of host plants, which i am sure will now roam around our nectar plants including the hoyas. Butterflies, here i come!

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GBBD
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